This book brings critical, scholarly attention to the systematic positioning and subjective experiences of mothers involved in child protection processes in “risk”-based child protection systems. While mothers are typically the primary focus of child protection prevention and investigations, their gendered experiences, challenges and triumphs are seldom given space in the academic literature, practice and/or public spaces to be seen or heard. Chapters in this volume build on existing literature to illustrate the structural positioning and/or lived experiences of mothers who come into contact with child protection for a variety of reasons: substance (ab)use, positive HIV status, child injury, fetal alcohol syndrome, colonial assessment methodologies, young age, incarceration, childbirth, and intimate partner violence. 

Ultimately this anthology calls for a fundamental rethinking of how mothers involved in child protection proceedings are conceptualized in child protection research, policy and practice. It is recommended that mothers voices must be central to humanely reforming child protection systems.

Across the globe the work of early childhood educators, who are predominantly women, is misunderstood, underpaid and undervalued. Perspectives on early childhood educators are highly contentious: are they child development experts, oppressed workers, maternal substitutes, technicians, facilitators of early learning, or something else? This volume features chapter authors from Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, the USA and New Zealand, examine a range of contemporary feminist theories in relation to the early childhood educator.

The feminist theories covered include materialist feminism, poststructural feminism, decolonizing feminisms, posthumanist feminism, new materialist feminism, feminist ethics of care, womanist feminism, postcolonial feminism, femme theory and feminist queer theory. The editors of the volume offer an introduction and commentaries that explore solidarities and tensions between the feminisms to generate critical conversations about the work, lived experiences, and agency of early childhood educators. The volume contributes to shifting understandings of the early childhood educator in the contexts of culture, practice, policy and politics.